The modern day scouting is based on the historically popular scout-role in the army. The scout was a person who could survive on his own in the wild, and try to search for the enemies. The scout's role in the army was vital, because more information about the enemy would give an advantage when fights broke out. The founder of the scouts-movement was a British warhero named Robert Baden-Powell. Baden-Powell wanted to create training guides for young people interested in becoming military scouts, but the main audience of the training guides were too young to be in the army. Baden-Powell wrote a book called "Scouting for boys", which later on became the boy scout handbook. The scouting organisations have decided to stay politically neutral. In the 1940s, allegedly the infamous Hitler Jugend wanted to be recognised as a scouting organisation, but was declined. Also, most communist countries have banned scouting for being A Freedom Of Youth -activity.
The scouting movement came to Finland in 1910, when Finland was still the Grand Duchy of Finland, part of the Empire of Russia. In the twenties, the scouts in Finland became more organised, becoming the basis for the Finnish scoutunion. In 1943, the girl scouts got their own organisation, called Finnish girl scoutunion. Thirty years later, in 1972, both unions combined in to the Finlands scouts.